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At least 44 of the government contracts that have been canceled by the cost -saving initiative of Elon Musk were generated by federal agencies, as a result of which more than $ 220 million of the claimed savings of his group are wiped out according to an analysis of the New York Times of federal expenditure data.
But Mr. Musk’s group continues to mention 43 of those contracts as “endings” on its website, which calls it the “wall of receipts”. The group even added a few days or weeks after they were cheerful. The result was another A series of data errors On the website that made the group seem more successful in lowering the government costs than it had been.
The White House says that this is a backlog that will be remedied.
The New Life Blown Contracts varied from small dollar agreements on software licenses to large partnerships with suppliers who managed government data and records. Most contracts were canceled in February and March, when Mr. Musk’s group, the Ministry of Government Efficiency, demanded that agencies made enormous cuts in expenditure and staff.
Then they recovered agencies, sometimes only a few days later. In one case, the Environmental Protection Agency has revived a contract after just 2 ½ hours. The group of Mr. Musk mentioned that was still canceled that weeks later, even after it was revived and then extended – so that it will cost more than before.
These reversations not only illustrated the struggles of Mr. Musk’s team to produce accurate data on its results, but also the disadvantages of his fast $ 7 trillion federal budget In a few months.
Contractors said that Mr. Musk’s group had recommended to kill contracts that would probably not stay dead. Some were required by law. Others needed skills that the government needed but did not have.
Their reversations raise broader questions about how many of the deep but hasty cuts of the Musk Group are rolled back over time, so that the long -term effect on the bureaucracy and rule in Washington is eroded.
In Noord -Virginia, government contractor Larry Aldrich was informed in February that his company, Brennsys, had lost his contract to make web design and produce videos for a departments of veteran matters website For veterans with post -traumatic stress disorder.
“The VA cannot do this work alone,” said Mr Aldrich. “They don’t have the manpower or the skills.”
It didn’t take.
“Two weeks later we received an e -mail stating that it would be restored,” said Mr Aldrich. “I had something like that, wow, someone must have returned and told them:” We can’t do this. “
A spokesperson for the White House, Harrison Fields, said that the reversals showed that agencies had re -valuated the cuts they had made in the first push to meet Mr.’s instructions. Musk.
“The Doge Wall of Vouchers offers the newest and most accurate information after a thorough assessment that takes time,” said Mr Fields. “Updates of the Doge Savings page continue to be made immediately, and departments and agencies continue to emphasize the enormous savings dogs that Doge reaches.”
Meneer Musk’s group has mentioned More than 9,400 contracts claim the Cancel Credit for a total of $ 32 billion in savings. In total, Mr. Musk’s group says that the taxpayers saved $ 165 billion.
In comparison with that output, Mr Fields said, the reversals that were identified by the New York Times were “very, very small potatoes.”
He refused to say whether contracts on the list of the group go beyond that of the time that was also revived.
The times have discovered those reversations by looking for the federal purchasing data system, a government system that keeps track of changes in contracts. The Times searched for cases where contracts as canceled on the website of Mr. Musk had shown signs of new life, such as having added financing, an extensive timeline or an update with words such as ‘revoking’ or ‘recovery’.
That search appeared 44 of the zombies of the cost -saving group, contracts killed but then restored to life.
That total can still be an undercount, because changes in contracts can take time to appear in the purchasing data system, and because there is no standard way to identify a repaired contract in this system. The Times search may have missed a bit.
The rebellions started mid -February.
Raquel Romero and her husband had a contract to offer leadership training to lawyers of the Agriculture Department. She lost it on February 14, and got it back Four days later.
That was a solution for Mrs. Romero and her husband, who earned $ 45,000 in income at a time when all their other federal things had disappeared.
“We had lost all the income that we were planning for calendar year 2025. We had to sell our house. We are moving to an apartment,” she said. “We just feel really happy that we had this source to buy some time.”
The agricultural department said in a statement that it had restored this contract after it had discovered that it was ‘required by the articles of association’. It refused to say which status. Mrs. Romero said she thought the recovery was the product of personal intervention, who credited a senior lawyer from the agricultural department who was a strong supporter of the work of her and her husband.
“I only know she was retired two weeks later,” said Mrs. Romero.
Other reversations started to follow.
The Ministry of Veteran Affairs restored 16 contracts, most of every agency in the analysis of the Times.
That department refused to comment why. But veteran groups noted that some of the canceled contracts with the legally required positions were involved, such as a contractor who helped veterans in search of military data to use as evidence when obtaining benefits.
That contract was recovered After eight days.
In the educational department, Mr. Musk’s group said that it had saved $ 38 million for several years by canceling a contract to manage a repository of data on national schools. But legislators and interest groups objected and said that the law required data to be collected and that the government needed it to determine which schools qualified for certain subsidies, such as some tailor -made for rural areas.
“They should have used a scalpel,” said Rachel Dinkes of the Knowledge Alliance, an association of educational companies, including those who lost this contract. “But instead they went inside with an ax and cut it all down.”
That subsidy was recovered After 18 days, but with $ 17 million of his potential financing.
The short-term cancellation included an EPA contract, signed in 2023, to pay for a company established in Maryland for help in increasing awareness about asthma. The EPA has canceled that contract on 4:31 pm. on March 7, according to contract details. Then it restored the contract – in fact, canceling the cancellation – 6:58 pm The same night.
Why?
“Every purchasing that is recovered reflects that the agency has established that financing action supported administration priorities,” said the EPA. The agency refused to give details about this case. Last month the EPA extended this contract for another year and agreed to pay $ 171,000 more than before the cancellation. The contractor did not respond to questions.
From the start of his group’s work, Mr. Musk said that the government would probably have to undo a number of cuts.
“We have to act quickly to stop wasting billions of dollars in tax money,” Mr. Musk said On the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” in February. “But if we make a mistake, we will quickly turn it around.”
But Mr. Musk also made a second promise, crucial for performing the first. He said that his group would post the details of his work online to enable the public to have an accurate and up-to-date picture of what it had cut.
“We can call the details, rule by line,” said Mr. Musk in the same interview. “We have the coupons. We post the coupons.”
Since the beginning, The Times has found countless mistakes on the website of the group. These mistakes often raised the value of the savings that Mr. Musk’s team had reached. Mr. Musk promised that the group could earn $ 1 trillion from budget reductions this year, but so far it has come far from that goal. And even those cuts have been bloated Due to the recording of errors and guesswork.
Mr. Musk’s group, for example, previously claimed the honor of canceling programs that actually ended years or even ended decades past. It double the same cancellations, and once posted a claim that is confused ‘billion“And” million. “
This month The Times sent the White House a list of dozens of new life -blown contracts that were still on the list. Two days later, Mr. Musk’s group removed one: the EPA contract that had been canceled less than a day.
But at the same time, it added five other contracts that have already been refused to the list of ‘seals’, and claimed credit for $ 57 million more in savings that had already been reversed.
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